Miami's Cup-Winning First Line Reunited in Riga at VHL Entry Draft

[tcookie 897]

The Miami Marauders first line en route to their Founders Cup Championship last season consisted of Cabe McJake, Addison McLaren, and Vivek Weiner.

 

The trio will go their seperate ways in S75 - McLaren will play for the Philadelphia Reapers, McJake is back in Miami, and Weiner will play for the Saskatoon Wild - but they may not be apart for long.

 

All three of them were among a massive haul of prospects acquired at the S75 VHL Entry Draft by the Riga Reign, who underwent a full-on fire sale as the off-season began and ended up holding 19 picks in the S75 draft. With Phil Marleau, Lincoln Tate, and Greg Eagles all lost to retirement, Riga decided it was time to rebuild and traded away franchise icon Patrik Tallinder, along with Kyl Oferson, Guy Sasakamoose, and DeFenz Mann in several deals that allowed Riga to stock up ahead of one of the deepest drafts the VHL has ever seen.

 

McJake was Riga's first pick at 7th overall and McLaren went right after him at 8th overall. "It was really exciting for me, both to go that high and see the faith Riga has in me to help be a part of their future, and also to go to the same place as Cabe," McLaren commented. "I'm happy to be reunited with him and hope we can cause some havoc for goalies playing against Riga for a long time to come."

 

The Reign had three other picks in the first round, with which they picked forwards Joe Kelly and Dolant Fertitta, then they snagged netminder Sirkants Klamasteris with their final first rounder.

 

With four more picks in the second round, Riga held nine of the draft's first 32 picks. In the second round, they took forwards Justin Lose and Artair McCloud, defenseman Linus Zetterstrom, and finally at #32, they took Weiner. In the later rounds of the draft, the Reign picked up a few more ex-Marauders: centre Nikolas DAndrea and goalie Matthew Sovick Jr.

 

"Cabe and I were talking as those second round picks came up and we were hoping to get to play with Vivek and with Sheldon (Juniper) again. Vancouver wanted Juniper and got to him first but we were able to get Weiner which is awesome... we won a championship playing together, and we're hoping history repeats itself at the VHL level," says McLaren. "It was also nice to see us grab (Nikolas) DAndrea later on in the draft, he was a guy who was good to have in the locker room last season and though he didn't necessarily play a lot during our playoff run, he did his job well and was a big contributor, and I think he's going to be a good player at the next level."

 

Only time will tell whether the Reign going all-in on the S75 draft will kickstart another long run of success for the franchise that has made the playoffs 14 seasons in a row, but it seems they have the right building blocks in place.

 

@Nikdandrea34 @RedSus @coochiman

[Victor 10,940]

It was 13 seasons btw. I was afraid hedge's inability to count would spread lol.

[hedgehog337 3,483]

12 hours ago, Victor said:

It was 13 seasons btw. I was afraid hedge's inability to count would spread lol.

 

[fyrefly 172]

Thanks for the mention, I may or may not have been crossing my fingers for Riga! Anyway, good luck there. Go Wolves